Ruud tumbles out as Americans charge into third round

MELBOURNE : Jenson Brooksby blew another huge hole in the Australian Open draw by sending second seed Casper Ruud tumbling out in the second round on Thursday, a day after his fellow American Mackenzie McDonald had ushered Rafa Nadal to the exit.

While top seed Nadal was hampered by injury in his defeat, Norwegian Ruud was simply outplayed for all but a few games of his 6-3 7-5 6-7(4) 6-2 loss to the 22-year-old Californian over nearly four hours on Rod Laver Arena.

Those games came at the end of the third set when Ruud, who has recent Grand Slam pedigree after reaching the final at the French and U.S. Opens last year, saved three match points before running away with the tiebreak.

Brooksby, playing in the main draw at Melbourne Park for the first time, recovered his composure and his level to round out the win in the fourth set and move on to a meeting with compatriot Tommy Paul.

"I think that he played great today, didn't make many errors at all," said Ruud.

"I didn't feel like I played particularly bad, or not the level that I wanted to play, but he just ended up winning many of the longer rallies and had sort of an answer to all the questions that I asked him."

Brooksby and Paul are among six American men already through to the third round with another five yet to complete their second-round matches.

"I think we all push each other to really get better, regardless of each guy's situation," said Brooksby.

"I think that's shown in a lot of the guys having strong results lately."

With two of his rivals now out and world number one Carlos Alacaraz absent injured, Novak Djokovic is in action against qualifier Enzo Couacaud later on Thursday looking to take another step towards a 10th Australian Open title.

SWEARING IN RUSSIAN